Workshops set at Internet Evangelism conference

Added: (Mon Dec 06 2004)

Pressbox (Press Release) - Lynchburg. Workshops and conference schedule was approved on Friday for the Internet Evangelism for the 21st Century conference (Http://ie-21stcentury.com) scheduled for April 1-2, 2005 at Liberty University in central Virginia. “This is a conference unlike any other internet evangelism conference,” commented organizer Professor Dan Henrich, “many of the workshops will benefit the Christian who feels called to be an evangelist using the internet, but doesn’t know where to start.”

IE-21st Century is the brainstorm of a group of Communication Studies professors and one faculty from the missions department at Liberty. “Actually, one of our graduate students really encouraged us to schedule it for 2005,” Henrich said, “she really felt the urgency for 2005 and the Graduate Com Studies department agreed.” Liberty University founder, Rev Jerry Falwell said in a recent News & Advance interview by reporter Ron Brown that “About 500 years ago the world was changed by the printing press. In the past 20 years the Internet has basically changed the world again.”

One of the first goals was to establish a website and initiate promotion internationally. Thus http://ie-21stcentury.com was established in the form of a weblog to chronicle the evolving conference. “It has been exciting to see the workshop leaders come forward who share the same vision as we do as an organizing committee,” Henrich said.

Nine speakers have committed to attending from fields of service as far away as the Philippines. To date, the nine speakers will present the following workshops: “The Digital Divide” (David Bruce), “Cybermissions: The Intentional Front-Line use Of Computers and the Internet in Missions" (Rev John Edmiston); “How is evangelism changing in the 21st Century?” (Rev Allan Beeber); “What Works, What Doesn't and Why” (Rev David Bruce); “Guerilla Marketing” (Rev Chris Forbes); “Technology and Convergence” (LU Professors Henrich, Smith & Sova); “Evangelistic sites and Follow-up Systems” (Rev Allan Beeber & Siam Rogers); “A Complete Internet Evangelism Strategy with No Technical Skills and No Canned Templates” (Rev Chris Forbes); “Internet Evangelism and the 3rd World” (Dan Henrich & John Edmiston); “Connecting: Forming Strategic Digital Partnerships” (Rev David Bruce); “Help! I'm not a Techie!” and “Communicating Christ Effectively to Secular Audiences” (Rusty Wright). There will also be Graduate student paper presentations, a panel discussion with workshop leaders. A special networking dinner will be held the first evening where workshop leaders will sit at individual tables to have in-depth discussions.

For more information, visit http://ie-21stcentury.com or email info@ie-21stCentury.com